Human Rights Watch holds the centre responsible for mining mess

NEW DELHI: Human Rights Watch blames the Indian government for systematically failing to enforce key human rights and environmental safeguards in the country's mining industry.

"Many of the alleged human rights abuses described in the report result not from pattern of corruption or criminality but from the government's more mundane failure to effectively monitor, let alone police the human rights impacts of mining operations," says the 70 page report released in the capital of Goa today.

"While some of the laws and regulations are relatively good as they are written on paper, the government is essentially failing to ensure their implementation. If there is any seriousness really about checking some of the chaos in the mining sector, and making sure mining takes place without breaking the law, the government has to commit itself to certain resources that can help it oversee that mining happens with the laws its defined," said Chris Albin-Lackey who researches human rights issues in extractive industries and impact of corruption in resource-rich countries for the agency.

HRW is particularly critical of the system of Environmental Impact Assessments which are currently commissioned by mining firms themselves. Clearances and approvals based on these EIA, are rarely followed up by field visits and serious scrutiny before the project is approved.

According to HRW these EIA are often rife with incorrect and even deliberately misleading information. The MoEF has begun an accreditation process of such environment consultancies to address this old complaint.

The 70 page "Out of Control: Mining, Regulatory Failure and Human Rights in India," released in the capital of Goa today, is the result of a one year study covering 80 interviews of residents in affected communities, activists, and mining company and government officials in Goa and Karnataka, as well as in New Delhi over the last one year.

It notes farmers' complaints of polluted springs and groundwater, polluted air from overloaded ore trucks leading to respiratory and health problems, and destroying of crops. It has also registered threats, harassment, or physical attacks against protestors.

It did not cover Odisha, coal rich Chhattisgarh, or Jharkhand where naxalism is also an issue. "Those are some issue we consciously didn't look into it. It is obviously an important issue... Goa and Karnataka as case studies were interesting precisely because mining in these two states were failing in their own terms without having the other complications of conflict and naxal factors," says Albin-Lackey

"One of the areas in which India stands more favourably to other developing countries, is that the legal framework is stronger than many other places," says Albin-Lackey. "Where things fall apart is on the implementation side."

With more than 82,000 instances of illegal mining in 2010 alone as per official data - it works out to an annual rate of 30 criminal acts for every mining operation.